For years now, Arizona has been promoted as America’s solar power state. That image and the state’s solar industries are changing as Arizona led the nation in solar industry jobs lost in 2013. Utility attacks on rooftop solar and the end of policies promoting commercial solar played a role in the dramatic decline in jobs.
2014 looks to hold the same risk of further losses with the impacts of the new solar-only charges and residential solar disclaimer yet to be felt while a key Department of Revenue reinterpretation of existing law threatens to raise taxes on all homes with solar if not remedied quickly.
The Solar Foundation today issued a news release showing Arizona solar is on a slippery slope in solar employment, while the rest of the nation showed a 20 percent increase in solar jobs.
The solar jobs losses in Arizona appear to be widespread and likely came from a combination of losses in nearly all solar sectors. The cutting off of the commercial solar market in January of 2013 got the year off to a bad start, and the well-publicized attempts of APS to place an industry-crushing tax on residential solar customers has created substantial uncertainty about the future of the residential solar industry in the state.
Early data show January 2014 saw a 50 percent decline over January 2013 in rooftop solar contracts, and there is no reason to believe this year will be any better than last year from a jobs perspective, which saw the state shed more than 10 percent of those jobs.
This year will measure the impact of APS’s new residential solar tax, the new prohibitive waivers being required of all solar customers, and 2014 will tell whether utilities are successful in convincing the state to raise property taxes on all leased solar systems, something that could altogether upend the market.
Even in the face of bad news from 2013 and uneasy prospects for 2014, Arizona can still proclaim itself to be second in the nation in solar jobs.
